Lara risked a second look back.
Josh was running after them even as his soldiers opened fire on the creatures bounding down the pathway at them. She had forgotten just how unnatural they looked in motion, like a flip picture book colored all in black.
“Go!” Josh shouted at her. “Don’t stop! Kate sent them! They’re not going to stop! I can’t stop them! No one can!”
“Lara, she’s coming,” Will had said. “She’s coming…”
Kate. Lara remembered how the woman had chased them from Starch, Texas to Beaumont, then all the way into Louisiana and finally, Song Island. She wouldn’t let them go. No, that wasn’t true. She was more than happy to let them go. She just wouldn’t let Will go.
You and your exes, Will, she wanted to laugh.
If Lara went another day without having to hear that creature’s name, she would die a happy woman.
As Josh chased them — no, not chased, followed — the soldiers he had abandoned were still shooting behind them. The men, anyway. The only woman among them — the twenty-something with the black ponytail — was looking after them. After Josh. There was an expression on her face that Lara had seen plenty of times before.
Hurt. Regret. Betrayed.
“The boats!” Josh shouted at her. “Get to the boats! They won’t go into the water! Get to the boats!”
Lara didn’t know what he was doing, or why. She only knew that he wasn’t shooting at them with the gun clenched in his hand, and that was all she cared about.
She turned around and got a better grip around Danny’s waist just as they stepped off the pathway and she finally—finally—felt the squishy beach under her. The sand seemed to sink under her boots and she wasn’t running nearly as fast as she had been just a second ago.
It wasn’t that she was running slower, it was Danny. He was too heavy even with her and Gaby carrying him at the same time. His head hung against his chest, his eyes closed, and sweat dripped off his temple and down his painfully pale, unresponsive face. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was already dead, if she and Gaby weren’t carrying around a dead man with them at this very moment.
Bang! Bang!
Two quick gunshots from almost directly behind her. Lara didn’t have to look back to know who was shooting. Josh. She recognized the sound of his handgun from earlier, when he’d shot Danny.
“Faster!” Josh was shouting behind them between gunshots. “Get to the boats! Gaby, get to the boats!”
Lara looked over at Gaby on the other side of Danny, but she couldn’t see the teenager past Danny’s bouncing head. She could hear Gaby’s heavy breathing just fine, though, even over the pop-pop-pop of assault rifles and Josh’s earsplitting gunshots behind them.
The water! Get to the water!
She willed herself not to look back a third time (it was hard, so hard) and kept running — or ran as much as she could, anyway. The fact was, she was mostly stumbling, Danny’s weight like a giant boulder on her shoulders. It was his feet — they were dragging across the sand like an anchor. But that couldn’t be helped. He was simply too heavy for her and Gaby to lift completely off the ground.
Josh was still firing behind them. She didn’t know why he was wasting his time. Did that handgun of his (some kind of black semiautomatic) even have silver bullets? If they didn’t, he mind as well be picking up handfuls of sand and throwing them at the ghouls for all the good he was doing.
Of course, she didn’t bother to tell him that. If he fell now, that was one more thing for the creatures to waste a precious second or two on. Another speed bump on the road to salvation.
Speed bump of the dead. Ha ha. Good one, Lara.
She might have chuckled to herself that time.
I’ve finally developed Danny’s morbid sense of humor. God help me.
They were halfway to the water when Gaby began to slow down noticeably. Lara thought about shouting encouragement when she realized the teenager was only mirroring her own flagging pace. It wasn’t just that they were both tiring, they were also literally sinking into the beach with every step.
She didn’t know why it felt as if they were running in quicksand until she looked down and saw the blood. It was all over the beach, supplied in generous amounts by the dead men that had assaulted the island. The dozens of bodies lay across the white sand, multiple jagged lines of lost lives thrown away by Kate as if they were little more than expendable sacks of meat.
That’s all we are to them. Meat.
What chance do we have? Why do we keep fighting—
The shooting behind them had suddenly stopped and there was just her and Gaby’s labored breathing, along with Josh’s (he was so close behind her that she swore she could feel his warm breath brushing against the back of her neck) crashing against the lapping waves in front of them.
My God, it was still so far away.
The water — she could see it, even smell and taste it in the air, but it was still so far away. Why was it so damn far away?
She thought about handing Danny off to Josh. He was a man now — bigger and taller and stronger. He could help Gaby carry Danny faster than she could. The two of them were uninjured and would have a better chance of reaching the boat than with her. Besides, she was pretty sure she was bleeding again. The question was, was it both her wounds or just one? Given how badly her night was going, it was probably both.
Her left shoulder and thigh were screaming at her at unimaginable decibels. It had started when she first picked Danny up, and it had only gotten worse — and louder — as she trudged across the length of the beach. Her shoulder in particular howled and bounced off the insides of her skull. Both of her legs were throbbing — and not just the one that was injured and wrapped in gauze at the moment.
She wanted to stop and sit down. No, lie down. That would be so much better. It was time to rest, anyway. She had been fighting for so long, and now she just wanted to stop for a moment and take a breath that wasn’t so labored that it felt as if her chest would cave in with every gasp of air.
Why fight it? We can’t win.
Why didn’t you tell me, Will? Why didn’t you ever tell me the truth?
We can’t win. We can’t—
She looked across and saw Gaby on the other side of Danny. Her face was locked in a tight grimace, and every inch of her was flushed with pain. But she hadn’t stopped — not even for a second. She pushed on, fighting through whatever physical hell was trying to suffocate her at the moment.
The sight of Gaby filled Lara with pride.
You’re right, Will. We have to keep fighting. Not just for us, but for everyone. For all the Gabys of the world. The Elises and the Veras and the Dwaynes.
Goddammit, you’re right. You’re always so damn right…
She could do it. She could take the pain and keep moving, because there were no other choices. It was stop and die, or keep moving and live. It didn’t matter if they only survived for another second. Or minute. Or hour.
Survive!
“The boat!” Josh’s voice, so much louder than before, as if he was almost on top of her. Had she and Gaby really slowed down that much? “Get on the boat!”
“Lara!” Gaby? Why was Gaby shouting at her? “Ready?”
Ready? Ready for wha—
Oh.